European Research Studies Journal Volume XX, Issue 3A, 2017 pp. 383-395 ASEAN Tourism Marketing Communication Attribute: An Exploratory Research at Goaseantv Arisetyanto Nugroho 1 Abstract: The research on ASEAN marketing communication attribute is scarce; therefore, this research is the preliminary research to develop a sound marketing strategy for the ASEAN as ONE collaboration promotion @goaseantv. An exploratory research for the period January until December 2015 @goaseantv findings show that there are only 4 countries promoted among 10 ASEAN member countries. There are 6 topics with the minimum 1.0 eigen value, the marketing communication attributes extracted are ASEAN tourism destination promotion and the scenic proposition, since @goaseantv is an extension information channel from GOASEANTV, therefore there are two popular TV program which are The Eco Traveler and Go Fast Go Home that promoted throught the channel. Furthermore, @goaseantv also has a program to promote halal food, which is Halal Foodie. Finally, this research proposes that The ASEAN as ONE should integrate all ASEAN countries in the @goaseantv marketing communication platform. The majority of activities promoted in @goaseantv is in Malaysia, therefore the @goaseantv should consider to improve the other countries promotion proportion, a collaboration with the ASEAN countries tourism channel should developed to promote a sound ASEAN As ONE brand association. 1 Mercu Buana University, Faculty of Economics and Business, Jakarta-Indonesia Email:
Transcript
European Research Studies Journal
Volume XX, Issue 3A, 2017
pp. 383-395
ASEAN Tourism Marketing Communication Attribute:
An Exploratory Research at Goaseantv
Arisetyanto Nugroho
1
Abstract:
The research on ASEAN marketing communication attribute is scarce; therefore, this
research is the preliminary research to develop a sound marketing strategy for the ASEAN as
ONE collaboration promotion @goaseantv. An exploratory research for the period January
until December 2015 @goaseantv findings show that there are only 4 countries promoted
among 10 ASEAN member countries.
There are 6 topics with the minimum 1.0 eigen value, the marketing communication
attributes extracted are ASEAN tourism destination promotion and the scenic proposition,
since @goaseantv is an extension information channel from GOASEANTV, therefore there
are two popular TV program which are The Eco Traveler and Go Fast Go Home that
promoted throught the channel.
Furthermore, @goaseantv also has a program to promote halal food, which is Halal Foodie.
Finally, this research proposes that The ASEAN as ONE should integrate all ASEAN
countries in the @goaseantv marketing communication platform. The majority of activities
promoted in @goaseantv is in Malaysia, therefore the @goaseantv should consider to
improve the other countries promotion proportion, a collaboration with the ASEAN countries
tourism channel should developed to promote a sound ASEAN As ONE brand association.
1 Mercu Buana University, Faculty of Economics and Business, Jakarta-Indonesia
Email:
Asean Tourism Marketing Communication Attribute:
An Exploratory Research at Goaseantv
384
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
The tourism GDP contribution from 2014 to 2019 increased consistently. In 2016
there are 11 million tourist from foreign countries from the initial 9 million tourist in
2014 and hopefully it will reach 20 million in 2019. The contribution of tourism for
Indonesian GDP in 2014 is 4% or 120 trillion and targeted into 8% or 260 trillion in
2019. The oil, gas, coal and CPO production continues to fall, but tourism continues
to rise (increase 10-12% per year), so it's quite rational if in the year 2019, the
tourism industry sector will contribute larger for Indonesian GDP compare to the oil
and gas sector.
The future of the tourist market are from China, India and Russia, they will be the
driver of the world tourism in the Asia-Pacific region of ASEAN. Therefore the
ASEAN tourism industry growing rapidly, the report of the UNWTO (UNWTO,
2015) revised the estimated Chinese tourists to 200 million tourists in the year 2030.
This is a huge number of tourist market for every ASEAN countries.
The rivalry between the ASEAN countries to attract the international tourist
particularly the Chinese tourist pioneered by the Thailand, Singapore, Viet Nam and
Malaysia which also has become the top 10 destination choice for the Chinese
tourist. The number of Chinese tourist come to ASEAN in 2012 was 9.25 million,
this amount was 10.48% of international tourist arrivals in ASEAN, and 11% of
Chinese tourists.
In the year 2017, the ASEAN countries (Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines,
Malaysia, Cambodia, Viet Nam and Indonesia) will become the main destination for
Chinese tourist, these ASEAN countries will welcome 18.5 million Chinese tourist
arrivals. The Philippines will receive (18.3%) and Cambodia (22.9%) as the country
experienced the highest growth rate for Chinese tourists compare to the other
ASEAN countries. Thailand and Singapore will still have the highest market, with
35.3% and 22.1%, respectively, followed by Malaysia and Viet Nam respectively
accounted 12% (Euromonitor, 2013).
This data showed Indonesia has huge challenges from the other ASEAN countries to
develop the tourism sector, therefore the process to develop the tourism sector
requires a strategy that we can learn from the other ASEAN member countries that
has been successfully developing the Chinese tourist market. In 1988, Thailand
became the first top of mind tourism destination in China because of the Thailand
promote in China, consequently Thailand became the Chinese tourist favorite
destination.
Nowadays, the competition to develop the Chinese tourist market is tight, Thailand
compete particularly from the other ASEAN member countries such as Malaysia,
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Singapore & Vietnam (Nurhendiarni, Hidayat and Pasasa, 2015), which has been
actively developing and promoting their tourism destination in the last two decades.
Untong, Ramos, Kaosa-Ard and Rey-Maquieira (2015) found that, for the period
2009 – 2012, Thailand is the only country that possessed the competitive advantage
compare to the other ASEAN member countries in persuading the Chinese tourists.
In this period, the growth rate of Chinese tourists visiting Thailand is also higher
than the average growth of the other ASEAN countries (Euromonitor, 2014 ).
The competition is likely to become more intense in the future as more countries
with scenic surroundings and beautiful view, trying to gain benefit of the growth of
the tourism industry (Sadi and Bartels, 1999). In addition, some countries invested
substantially in the infrastructure development and facilities to encourage and
support their own tourism competitiveness.
Indonesia need to learn the map of the ASEAN tourism competition, furthermore
focus on the marketing campaign of ASEAN tourism destinations. Every destination
implement the marketing communication strategy to convey its services to
consumers through social networking marketing communication channels. Social
networking became an effective and efficient channel to build impressions, existence
nor presence as well as the connections between companies and the consumers
(Phelan, Chen and Haney, 2013; Ivanova et al., 2017; Faizova et al., 2015).
Social network increase the interaction between the various parties within the online
ecosystem, engage interaction between prospective consumers with the companies
and among fellow of prospective consumers. An intense interaction will created the
company presence in the online ecosystem and will increased interwoven
connectedness between the company and the consumer.
Twitter is a social network application that have many followers, the application of
twitter for marketing has been started from year 2008 (Bulearca and Bulearca,
2010). Twitter is a popular microblogging and has been growing since 2006 (Sakaki,
Okazaki and Matsuo, 2010). Twitter users can do a tweet (message or comment)
with a 140 character limit, twitter users can also follow other account activity
(follow) and receive tweets generated by another account (Louie, Lee, Park and
Moon, 2010). The number of tweets generated every day increased significantly
(Wibisono and Faruqi, 2013).
In the future, the growth of tourist come to ASEAN influenced by the growing
number of middle-class groups in the ASEAN market itself and also in the world
market. In addition, the development of mobile internet technology in using social
networking applications like facebook and twitter as well as instagram opened
access for netizen to interact and exchange information, photos, videos or comments
about the tour experience, especially tourism in ASEAN, therefore an exploratory
research on ASEAN tourism marketing communication attribute is important.
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An Exploratory Research at Goaseantv
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1.2 Research Problem
Further research on tourism should focus on the marketing communication
conducted via the social network application platform. Furthermore, the ASEAN
countries competition to attract the international tourist is growing, therefore
Indonesia need to map the ASEAN tourism destination compared to the other
ASEAN member. In Summary, a marketing communication research on ASEAN
tourism is necessary to develop the fundamental understanding on the ASEAN
tourism destination.
1.3 Research Objective
The research objective is to explore the ASEAN tourism destination attributes from
the ASEAN marketing communication channels @goaseantv. This research will
develop the ASEAN tourism and travel research from the social network application
(Phelan, Virginia Mills, Douglas and Brian Aday, 2013).
1.4 Research Novelty
Literature about tourism destination marketing communications attributes through
the twitter social networking is still underdeveloped, furthermore the research
context in ASEAN is also insufficient, therefore the fundamental research required
to explore the ASEAN tourism destination attributes from the ASEAN marketing
communications channel. This research is a mixed method research utilizing the
primary data @goaseantv tweet to explore the ASEAN tourism marketing
communication.
1.5 Research Contribution
This study will explore the tourism destination attributes of the @goaseantv tourism
marketing communication channel from the tweet of the twitter account
@goaseantv. This research is an empirical research on ASEAN tourism destination,
therefore will contribute a recommendation for the ASEAN as one tourism
marketing policy.
2. Literature Review
2.1 State of The Art
The ASEAN tourism development evolve in line with the growing number of middle
class who want to gain experience in ASEAN. This development was also supported
by the development of information technology through the marketing channels of
communication. Social networking application allows the exchange of information
on tourism to his target audience. The company convince consumers in the consumer
decision making process with the social network application, online marketing
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communication, as well as the website activity. However the growth of the tourism
industry is not in line with the development of the academic research. There is still a
very little literature that explains the phenomenon of social network applications as
well as online marketing (Phelan et al., 2013).
2.2 Research Road Map
The exploratory research on ASEAN tourism-marketing communications attributes
are still a few. Tourism marketing communications attributes research is essential
since it consist of the scenic object experience and the destination as a major
attributes in tourism. Objects and tourism destination is the driving factor and the
strongest reason for tourist to travel. Object and the destination attractiveness are the
main determinant of satisfaction for tourist, nevertheless the exploratory research on
tourism attributes for the online marketing communication channels is still a few
(Paraskevas, Altinay, McLean and Cooper, 2013; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010).
The roadmap of this research is to conduct an inductive research as the first step to
examine the ASEAN marketing communication attributes through the primary data
@goaseantv tweet. The tweet data open to the public; therefore, we can collect the
data for further process and analysis. Through the collection of tweets from
@goaseantv twitter, researcher will obtain a corpus (textual documents) delivered by
@goaseantv in the period January 2015 until December 2015.
2.3 Preliminary Study
The social network application is a marketing communications channel to reach out
a wide array of consumers with large numbers. This technology is very useful in the
development of tourism in ASEAN, because of the ASEAN's geographical factors,
thus social network application can unify large areas diversities. The current
information technology social network application particularly open access for the
information exchange for all ASEAN residents.
Information technology influenced the process of individuals in excavating the
information within the decision making process. Information technology such as the
internet and social networks provide information about various tourist destination,
this information consists of the experience of tourists as well as photos showing the
area. Content creation activities in social network application is called consumer
generated content (content created by consumers), in contrast to the content of the
products and services before the era of information technology, when the product
and services is generally created by the manufacturer.
Consumer generated content delivered through social networks such as facebook,
twitter, instagram, etc have basic characteristics i.e. bring together a variety of social
networking users and lets them exchange information (video, audio and text) (Di
Virgilio and Pantano, 2012). Social Networking supports interaction with users in
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An Exploratory Research at Goaseantv
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exchanging pictures with good resolution quality therefore the social networking
application very useful to promote the tourism (Pietro et al., 2012).
The information conveyed in the social network application can have a snowball
effect to reach many people. This phenomenon is known as e-wom (electronic word
of mouth), the rapid development of tourism also occurs due to snowball word of
mouth in cyberspace. Electronic Word of Mouth or e-wom has undergone significant
development of the last few years, this development is supported by the acceleration
of the fast growing social network application, various studies have also shown that
e-wom in the format of the reviews, comments and rating is a powerful e-wom to
influence and persuade consumers (Barreda and Bilgihan, 2013).
E-wom will provide positive benefits to the company's brand, while generally
negative wom motivate netizen to punish the companies who cannot deliver the
expected satisfaction for the consumer, inefficiency, and irresponsible behavior,
strategy or tactics and products, which do not comply with the expectation of the
consumer. The digital environment e-wom has opened access for consumers to
obtain accurate information to develop an up to date products and services.
The continuum shift from corporate to the consumer, the consumer make community
or consumer group who are the users of the products and services. They are growing
strong to influence the other consumer, and the influence become stronger compared
with the promotions delivered by the company to the consumer. Consumers who
have a good experience is a source of information that is needed and most trusted by
other prospective consumers, therefore the view of the consumers is the factor that
will influenced the decision making process of the prospective tourist.
The previous argument show that the social network application is important since it
reach a diverse target market, cover all of the people in various parts of the world.
Besides being the relevant channels to consumers because it convey the public
information. Information technology can also increase the company productivity
engaged in the tourism industry by integrating various services together with travel
operators, managers of tourist attractions and a variety of services as well as other
tourism products (solution channel).
Therefore the exploratory research is necessary as the preliminary research in the
social network application to promote the ASEAN tourism development. Further
research on tourist reviews and comment relate to the attributes is necessary, the gap
analysis will further conducted to develop the ASEAN tourism development.
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3. Research Method
3.1 Exploratory Research
This study is an exploratory research, the data extracted through the collection of
tweets from a twitter social network account, a sample of tweet from the January
2015 until December 2015 collected. 12 months of data interval will be able to show
the marketing communication activities.
3.2 Research Process
The tweet from the @goaseantv is an unstructured data (Table 1), therefore data
preparation needed before the analysis (Silver and Lewins, 2014). Data preparation
consists of 4 stages of the process which are the stage to input data descriptions, the
stage of data cleaning and data transformation, the stage of stemming and
lemmatization, as well as the last stage for the dictionary development.
Figure 1. Research Process
Collecting
Secondary Data
@goaseantv
Data Cleaning &
Data
Transformation
Stemming &
Lemmatization
Exploratory Factor
Analysis
Furthermore the exploratory factor analysis conducted using Provalis QDA Miner
software. QDA miner is a mixed method qualitative data analysis software that
process the tweet dataset which are the unstructured data (sentences) to quantitative
parameter which is the eigen value of the factors extracted, therefore we could
develop a solid argument to analyze the qualitative dataset. Cluster analysis showed
the dimensions of different tweets that can further ease researchers interpret the
dimensions created (Campbell, Pitt, Parent and Berthon, 2011). Mixed method
research software used in this research because it can offer exploratory techniques to
show the relationship between keywords and keywords with co-occurrence method
(Silver and Lewins, 2014).
The exploratory factor analysis retrieved factors obtained by reducing the overall
complexity of data, this is conducted by utilizing the inter correlation of the variable.
The first factor is a combination of keywords involving a large number of sample
variables and so on until the smallest number of the sample variant. The number of
factors extracted adjusted to a minimum eigenvalue criteria which is 1.0. The
eigenvalues are the sum of the variances of the factor values, when divided by the
number of variables, eigenvalues yield an estimate of the proportion of total variance
explained by a given factor (Cooper, Schindler, 2003; Ryzhkova and Prosvirkin,
2015; Frank et al., 2016).
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An Exploratory Research at Goaseantv
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Table 1. @goaseantv Secondary Data
4. Results Analysis
In today's digital era, digital applications for the mobile phone user, laptop or
computer will broaden the user access anywhere and anytime. Along with the digital
development, applications are also propose numerous and diverse benefit, one of the
applications such as Traveloka offer benefits to make it easier to choose the mode of
transport, booking information, and a variety of tourist destinations.
This application addressed to young people who want to travel and look for variety
of tourist destinations with cheap cost and easy to access platform. In addition to
using the application, which in this digital era, the public can also use social media
marketing communication channels such as twitter that provides information for the
users about the tourism destination anywhere and anytime.
@Goaseantv is social media marketing channel for ASEAN tourist destinations
targeting the potential tourist within ASEAN and outside ASEAN. There are 10
ASEAN member countries, but the @goaseantv exploratory research in the period
January to December 2015 show only 4 ASEAN countries destination only.
@goaseantv cluster analysis conducted and the dendogram (Figure 1) visualized the
topics dominant in the observation within the period January to December 2015.
There are 6 topics which are coloured in the dendogram.
